Maputo, 31 Dec (AIM) – Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, on Saturday dismissed the official results of the municipal elections repeated on 10 December in four cities and towns, as fictions drawn up by the electoral bodies which did not reflect the will of the voters as expressed at the polling stations.
The Renamo election agent, Gloria Salvador, was responding to the results declared by Lucia Ribeiro, chairperson of the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.
Ribeiro claimed that the ruling Frelimo Party had won the repeat elections in the municipalities of Nacala, Marromeu, Gurue and Milange, but gave no figures to back up this claim. The Constitutional Council ruling did not mention the voter turnout, the total number of votes cast, or the number won by Frelimo or by the opposition parties.
Salvador accused the Council of lying, when it said that evidence of the fraud in Marromeu had not been presented to the Marromeu District Court.
“We have the proof”, she declared. “For election results, the most important proof are the polling station results sheets (“editais”), and Renamo provided the Marromeu court with 23 editais”.
She said that the editais from the other 18 polling stations were missing – some because the polling station chairpersons seized them and fled with them, instead of posting them on the polling station walls, as was their duty.
She claimed that in other cases the police had seized the results sheets because they had received instructions to do so at the polling stations where Renamo was winning.
Salvador said Renamo had presented unequivocal proof of fraud which the Constitutional Council had chosen to ignore.
“They said there was no proof, but this is an outright lie”, she accused. “In Marromeu, the polling station chairpersons were found with a pile of ballot papers marked in advance in favour of Frelimo, an when our monitors found out, they were suspended. Is this not proof?”
“It’s unequivocal proof”, she continued, because one station chairperson found in possession of the fraudulent ballot papers was suspended from duty. But she believed this polling station chairperson was protected, and so was not in detention.
The Frelimo election agent, Foreign Minister Veronica Macamo, dismissed all talk of fraud and said Frelimo’s victories in the four repeated elections resulted from the trust that the population places in the ruling party.
“We are grateful to the Mozambican population”, declared Macamo. “We are pleased, but the victory brings us responsibilities to do more and better”.
As for amending the electoral legislation, which was one of the recommendations of the Constitutional Council, Macamo remitted the matter to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, as the only body with the power to change the laws.
(AIM)
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